Fable: The Return Chapter 40
The King of Albion faces The Court of Blades. Chapter 40 "You have traveled far, your majesty." Her soft voice echoes in his ears. Though distorted, it seems eerily familiar to his memories. "And you have fought…Heroically." Another voice, also at a level of familiarity, rings out over the field of battle. It is strong, proud…wise. "But you're time has now come." A third, horrifying voice booms over the valley of blood and snow. "While you have evaded our fiery grasp for all this time, we have burned your precious country. It's people now reside in a world of confusion and fire. They wander aimlessly about the lands, nobody to take up the seat of government. You have lived the life of a pirate, a warrior, a Hero…but you are no longer a King. Come now…look into the eyes of your doom." Three beings of pure shadow bloom into existence in the middle of the snowy field. Their bodies remain cloaked in darkness, ever circling them in evil malice. "I have no need to face you alone, or at all. My only requirement is to destroy these masks," The King holds up the two masks in his possession. "To do that, I need only walk through the Bronze Gate and cast them into the fire. All of your powers will be diminished, and Albion would no longer fear your wickedness. You would be nothing." The shadow on the leftmost of the three members of the Court releases the darkness surrounding him. He stands tall, a skeleton, burnt to a blackened crisp and blood seeping from his eyes. His voice rings out, evil and demonic, "Nothing?!" He starts to walk slowly towards the King, paying no attention to the fearsome balverines. With every step, snow melts under his skeletal feet, blood drips from his burnt hands and lands gently in the snow. With each drop of blood, black ooze spreads in the snow and ignites with roaring flame. "Allow me to introduce myself." As he starts to pass through the lines of balverines, one more juvenile beast lunges forward in anger. It is caught by the skeleton's blackened arm and held high in the air. Other balverines perk up and watch, readying for attack. Horror sets in as the juvenile balverine's fur starts to fall completely off of its body, forming a small circle under it. He drops the balverine in the circle. It is confused, but slowly realizes there is no longer danger. When it snarls at the skeleton and readies to strike, the circle of fur erupts into a black flame. The balverine is engulfed immediately and dies in a fire bred from pure shadow. "I am Jack of Blades. No doubt you can't recognize me like this, so why not let you know who I am once more. My mask lies at the bottom of a pool of molten, burning rock. If your intent is to do the same to my brother and sister, then you will do nothing but anger them. True power lies in the masks, but look what we have done to your world without them. We have spread fear, burned cities, ended countless miserable lives, and we have come to finish the job. A little fire will not stop us." The Queen and the Knight follow closely behind the Jack now, still enveloped in shadow. The balverines regretfully let them through their lines, knowing full well the danger of stopping all three of them. One pirate steps forward and raises his pistol at Jack. The shadowy figure behind Jack's right shoulder lifts an arm towards the pirate, darkness flows from the figures hand and wraps itself around the pirate's body. The darkness attacks the pirate like a thousand furious blades, it covers his body and crushes it into the ground. Two more pirates step forward, both with pistols raised. They fire, the bullets remain in the air, held still as the other figure raises both arms. The pirates are lifted by shadow into the air and then twisted so they hang upside down. Gentle, feminine laughter is heard as the bullets launch into the pirates skulls. Their blood and brains drop into the snow, coloring it a dark shade of red. Soon after, their bodies follow, crashing hard into the ground. Now, the pirates back away, leaving only Henry, Reaver…and The King. Henry raises his massive claymore and takes a leap forward, the king screams out to him, "No!!" Jack catches Henry by the throat and throws him into the Shrine, the openings surrounding the shrine fill with a dark red barrier, like walls made of pure blood. Jack turns to the shrine and goes into the barrier to face Henry. "Alright," Reaver speaks up. "I've had enough." He pulls out a pistol from beneath his vest. He takes two big steps forward and moves the pistol swiftly up to the head area of one of the cloaked figures. Before his finger could pull the trigger, a large arm escaped the robes of darkness and grabbed the barrel of the gun. The metal of the barrel melted under extreme heat. The powder within the weapon discharged due to the extreme temperature, exploding the weapon and destroying it from within. Reaver stepped back lightly and dropped the melting weapon, but not before he was grabbed by the throat by the shadow's other arm. All cloaks of shadow fell away from this figure, revealing a disturbing face and body. The uniform of a royal soldier of high rank, tattered and covered with rotten dirt. White hair riddled with filth and worms from beneath the ground. A once proud face that was graced with well kept facial hair now reduced to a decaying corpse. One lifeless eye hangs out of its socket by the remaining threads of muscle, holes and cuts litter his face, night crawlers ooze out from between his rotting lips. The King falls to his knees, "Walter?" A single tear falls from is left eye. What remains of Walter begins to laugh heartily and ghoulishly. "No. Your pathetic friend was gone from this husk of a body long ago. I am Knight of Blades." Knight tosses Reaver several years away, he crashes into a group of balverines. His voice is that of Walter's, but it is distorted and covered by a strange tone of darkness. "You hold something that belongs to me. I shall have it back now!" Knight lunges forward, leading with a fist. Right before it hits its mark, he is caught from behind by a large White paw. Woltach lifts Knight by his shoulders and hurls him backward into the army of balverines. He howls to his gathering kin, "Out of the way! Do not lay a claw on him! This one belongs to me!" The balverines quickly make a circle around Knight, giving plenty of room for Woltach to enter their makeshift arena. The King stands slowly, both masks remain in his hands. He stares down the one remaining figure of shadow. "And you…The Queen that would end my reign as King." She laughs from behind her veil of darkness, "Smart boy." "I have long since ended my childhood. I am no boy, you monster." "If you added the years on this land that all of these creatures have lived together and placed them in one being…that being would still be a child compared to me. I am Queen of Blades. While you may reign over land, I reign over your entire life. You have played a fun game, Hero…but it is time for the game to end." "You forget that I hold your power in my hands." "My brothers have more than demonstrated our capabilities without the masks. We have allowed you to live for the sole purpose of giving us a little fun on this world before we watch it burn and decay. We didn't expect you to be fool enough to find both of our masks and take them to the very location of the third. But…we should have expected it from the King of Fools. A descendant of a Hero known to the world as Chicken Chaser. You rule as King over a breaking world, one that is doomed to create its own apocalypse if we would not create our own for it. Humans are destined to die, they are born here for no true purpose, they achieve nothing. Heroes are born to defeat darkness, and every last one has failed. From the beginning of time, Darkness was the first entity to exist. Light came soon after and has tried valiantly to keep the Darkness at bay. But Darkness has remained throughout the ages, living on beyond the years of Heroes and Archons. You are on this world for one purpose alone…to die by our blades." "I will not die, not by you at least. I will die in peace, as I have earned through my life as a Hero and a King. My son will become King after I have passed, and he shall lead the people of Albion into a better future. Then he will die in peace as I did, leaving Albion to his son after him." "No, Hero. You will die in pain." "You seem so sure of yourself." He drops the masks into the snow and slowly draws his sword. A slight smirk spreads across his face as the blade lights on fire from his returning Will. "If you want your precious mask, all you have to do is take it." "You talk too much." "Then come shut my mouth!" A glimmer of the flame of anger burns within his eyes as he stares into the Darkness. "As you wish…Hero!" The darkness around her falls, revealing the decaying body of a slender woman wearing a light blue dress. Her hair is dark and flows down over her shoulders. Her eyes bare no color other than pure black. Her face, though far more pale and decrepit than before, is just as he remembers. "Gabrielle?"